Providing both stay fit and stay here for the next 10 years, i can see them being the new Gary Neville and David Beckham, they also remind me of both of them with Rafael overlapping whil Antonio Valencia puts his cross in, i also notice that Antonio Valencia was taking our corners on the right hand side on sunday, i thought Ashley Young would take it.
Rafael will never be as good as Neville. Valencia and Becks are two totally different styles of player. Valencia has pace, can beat a man, has two good feet and scores goals from open play. Becks didn't. He had lots of good qualities, but pace and a decent left foot weren't amongst them.
I agree with you about the pace, but Becks had a very good left foot, he just never had to use very often, and I would definitely argue that Becks has a much better left foot than Valencia.
Haha Valencia has a left foot? He has two right feet. Like everyone has said, they're all different types of players, but Beckham's mental drive puts him over Valencia every day of the week. Still think the Valencia/Rafael partnership can be just as potent as the Beckham/Neville partnership.
I don't know where this slanderous myth that Rafael is suspect at defending has come from. He's faced a lot of top opposition and coped really well, he hassles opponents constantly, has blistering pace, deceptively strong, wins his share of headers and has a good tackle. Also he's the only PL player to have made 8 tackles in a game on more than one occasion this season. He occasional gets caught making a rookie mistake but its not often and people seem to think Neville was born a seasoned defender. He was a wet behind the ears rookie making mistakes as well.
You're wrong about Valencia being two footed, he's one of the most one footed players in our team, Becks had a much better left foot than Valencia and at his peak was better than Valencia has been so far. That said, Valencia has been very good in his own right and is fast becoming a key player in this United team. Although Rafael and Valencia are a very different combination to Neville and Becks I do think they have the potential to be a formidable partnership. Rafael is looking very promising and if he keeps improving and ironing out those small mistakes a bit more then he's going to be a very good player and along with Valencia they can be a great team together.
I don't think I've ever seen Valencia use his left foot. I've seen a few comedy outside of the right foot efforts on goal when a left foot shot would have been the better option.
